Sixty-Nine Of Seventy Weeks Fulfilled

May 5th, 2025
by Lance Waldie

Daniel 9:26 “Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing, and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined.

In v. 25 Daniel’s prophecy said that there would be a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem. Daniel wrote the prophecy in 539 BC, and the decree he prophesied would occur did in fact go out in 444 BC. Verse 25 also says that at the end of seven weeks and 62 weeks (69 weeks) the Messiah would come. That Messiah was Jesus Christ as evidenced by the fact that he did in fact come at the end of the 69 weeks—not to mention the fact that He was from the line of Judah and of David, died for sins, and rose again after three days in the tomb!

Verse 26 picks up with the time immediately following the 69 weeks, and it is prophesied that the Messiah will be “cut off and have nothing.” Of course this is a reference to the death of the Messiah and the fact that His earthly kingdom would not be set up. That Kingdom will arrive at His second coming. Jesus, one week after His triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11), which fulfilled the first 69 weeks, was “cut off” at the cross, and He died.

Dr. Harold Hoehner in his book The Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ has determined that Christ actually died on Friday April 3 A.D. 33. This date is concluded from the 70-weeks prophecy of Daniel 9:24-26. The solar year (365 days) times 69 weeks equals 483 years. To subtract this from 444 BC (Artaxerxes’ decree to rebuild Jerusalem) brings the date to AD 38—five years too late from the AD 33 date already proposed. The 360-day year, the one the Jews used, does work however. Their calendar was used also by ancient India, Persia, Babylon, Assyria, Egypt, Central/South America, and China in ancient times. A year in those days was commonly reckoned as 360 days. The Apostle John, in Revelation 12:14, speaks of “time, times, and half a time” (3.5 years) and of the same thing in 11:2-3, but he calls the time period “42 months” in v. 2 and 1,260 days in v. 3. Forty-two months with 30-day months translates to 1,260 days, equivalent to 3.5 years—“time, times, & half a time.” When one compares Genesis 7:11 to 8:4, there are five months with total 150 days—clearly months reckoned as 30 days apiece.

So using the 360 day year and Friday April 3, A.D. 33 as the day Christ died, all that needs to be done is to count backwards to see if Jesus Christ was the Messiah Daniel described. With 444 BC as the year the decree went out (and not knowing the exact day) it is clear that it could not have gone out prior to the first of that year which was Nisan 1 (March 5). First, one must multiply 360 X 483 years, and that totals 173,880 days. Now taking this number and counting backwards from April 3, AD 33, the date we arrive at is the year 444 BC—the very year that the Persian King Artaxerxes decreed that Jerusalem should be rebuilt. Determining which day Artaxerxes decreed this is done only after converting the 360 day year to the 365 day year.

To convert this to our 365 day year we would come up with only 476 years, seven years shy of the 483 found in the prophecy. Now since a year is exactly 365.24219879 days. This is why we have a leap year every four years. So we now take our 476 years and add the leap years that occurred. There were 119 of them from 444 BC to AD 33. So we multiply 476 X 365.242 bringing our total to 173,855 days. There are now 25 days to be accounted for between the 444 BC to AD 33 to reach the 173,880 days we got from multiplying 483 X the 360 day year. If we add the 25 days to March 5 from the 444 BC date we come to March 30, AD 33, the day of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem prophesied by Zechariah in 9:9—one week before He was put to death, one week before he was “cut off.” Looks like Jesus is the Messiah!